Chaos unfolded when activists pushed back against Cornell Medical College security guards who tried to stop a legal protest against the school’s dean, Dr. Laurie Glimcher. As a member of the board of the New York Blood Center (NYBC), Dr. Glimcher signed off on the organization’s plan to abandon 66 chimpanzees in Liberia with no food or water.

Activists have staged three protests at Cornell Medical College demanding that Dr. Glimcher reinstate funding for NYBC’s ex-lab chimps. During the first two protests, students, faculty and staff exiting the building were instructed by school officials to ignore the activists, and they were given handouts exonerating Dr. Glimcher.

A man exiting Cornell spits on an activist protesting Dr. Laurie Glimcher

When that strategy backfired, by triggering a louder and more disruptive activist presence, Cornell’s security team diverted people leaving the premises to a side exit and then created a human blockade to keep activists several hundred feet away. The school’s approach again backfired, as the increased repression only served to generate more outrage from both the activists and people exiting Cornell who were disturbed by the commotion.

Cornell security guards block activists from protesting on a public sidewalk

NYBC left its former chimps on six islands near Monrovia, the country’s capital, with no food or water after experimenting on them for 30 years; earning $500 million in royalties off of the research; and promising to provide them with lifelong care.

In a letter to the NY Blood Center, Jane Goodall said the organization has a “moral obligation” to pay for the chimps’ care.

Please join the Facebook page: New York Blood Center: Do the Right Thing to participate in the online actions. If you live in New York City, please join the protests targeting New York Blood Center board members at their homes and offices.

Activists demand that NYBC board member Laurie Glimcher reinstates funding for the group’s ex-lab chimps

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) staged a massive protest at the headquarters of the New York Blood Center, the organization that abandoned 66 ex-lab chimpanzees on islands in Liberia with no food or water after earning $500 million in royalties off of the research.

The protest featured several prominent speakers, including Claudine André, the founder of the world famous bonobo sanctuary, Lola Ya Bonobo. Ms. André traveled from the Democratic Republic of Congo to participate.

Claudine André speaks at New York Blood Center protest

The theme of the protest was “Keep Your Promise” because New York Blood Center officials made a commitment to provide the chimpanzees with lifelong care.

New York Blood Center executives promised to provide its chimpanzees with lifelong care.

Please be a voice for the abandoned chimps by taking action at NYBC: Do the Right Thing and Save the Abandoned Chimps

New York Blood Center (NYBC) board member Dr. Laurie Glimcher instructed the faculty, staff and students of Weill Cornell Medical College, where she is the Dean, to ignore New Yorkers who gathered at the school’s main entrance to protest NYBC’s decision to abandon chimpanzees in Liberia. With the vast majority of people from Cornell refusing to engage with or acknowledge the protesters and with many people actually laughing at them, activists had little incentive to be polite or professional:

NYBC left 66 chimps on islands near Monrovia, the country’s capital, with no food or water after experimenting on them for 30 years; earning $500 million in royalties off of the research; and making a promise to provide them with lifelong care.

Weill Cornell student suggests that activists are misinformed. Is Dr. Jane Goodall misinformed too?

In addition to instructing students, faculty and staff to ignore the protesters, Cornell distributed handouts, which attempt to distance Dr. Glimcher from NYBC’s crime, as people exited the building directly into the protest.

Students, faculty and staff at Weill Cornell Medical College laugh at and ignore activists protesting the Dean, Dr. Laurie Glimcher, who is on the board of the NY Blood Center

Students, faculty and staff at Cornell expressed no compassion for the chimps abandoned by their Dean, Dr. Laurie Glimcher of the NY Blood Center

Please join the Facebook page: New York Blood Center: Do the Right Thing to participate in the online actions. If you live in New York City, please join the protests targeting New York Blood Center board members at their homes and offices.

Activists protest Dr. Laurie Glimcher of the New York Blood Center at her 16 room condo in NYC

Please join the Facebook page New York Blood Center: Do the Right Thing to join the campaign to compel Laurie Glimcher and the other NYBC board members to reinstate funding for the chimps.

Activists march from Laurie Glimcher’s office to her home in NYC

In mid-August, several months after news broke that the NY Blood Center (NYBC) abandoned 66 of its former lab chimpanzees on islands in Liberia, a primate rescue group called ATO based in West Africa alerted great ape advocates worldwide to the existence of yet another colony of chimps abandoned by NYBC.

Ponso is the sole survivor of a colony of 20 chimps abandoned by NYBC in the Ivory Coast

According to Betsy Brotman, the director of NYBC’s lab in Liberia and a vocal critic of group’s decision to abandon its chimpanzees, NYBC relocated 20 chimps to an island in the Ivory Coast in 1983, when they were no longer needed for research. When the local Ivorian hired by NYBC to deliver food to the chimps failed to perform his job, NYBC was, due to political unrest, unable to retrieve the chimps to bring them elsewhere.

NYBC abandoned 20 chimps and their offspring on what locals call the “Island of Chimpanzees” in the Ivory Coast.

According to a report compiled by the World Conservation Union, eight chimpanzees died or disappeared during their first three weeks on the island, and three more died during the following months. One year after their arrival, only nine chimps remained.

A local farmer and his son Germain learned about the plight of the abandoned chimps and brought them bread and bananas, a substandard diet that could not sustain many of the chimps who were already physically compromised by the NYBC experiments.

Ponso, the sole survivor of a colony of 20 chimps abandoned by NYBC, greets Ponso SOS, a relief organization created to bring him food.

By December, 2013, only four chimps remained – a male, a female and their two babies. In a two day period that month, all but the male, Ponso, perished. Germain, the local farmer, said that Ponso helped him bury the dead by tossing dirt over the graves of his family.

When word spread in August 2015 about Ponso’s plight, the Facebook group NYBC: Do the Right Thing helped raise money so that ATO could begin making relief missions to him. The following video documents the first mission:

Ideally, Ponso would be rescued and relocated to a primate sanctuary with other chimpanzees, but great ape charities say that West African governments are reluctant to issue transport permits for animals who have been exposed to diseases. Many of the NYBC chimps were infected with hepatitis. The recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa only complicates the movement of primates across country borders.

Concerned citizens worldwide advocate for Ponso

The primate rescue group ATO asserts that NYBC has made no effort over the past three decades to provide these chimps and their offspring with food, enrichment and veterinary care.

NYBC executives have not yet commented publicly on the 20 chimps who they left to die in the Ivory Coast. When confronted by mainstream media about this atrocity, will they shift the blame to the government as they have done in Liberia?

Caring New Yorkers are demanding that NYBC reinstates funding to pay for the lifelong care of their former lab chimps.

Advocates in New York City are escalating their campaign to pressure NYBC executives to fulfill their promise to pay for the care of their former lab chimps. On August 30th, a group of advocates traveled to the Hamptons, a wealthy enclave three hours away from NYC, to protest at the beachfront estate of NYBC Chairman Howard Milstein.

In September, activists will not only continue to protest against Mr. Milstein at his NYC apartment building but will also begin protesting at the home and office of NYBC Board Member Dr. Laurie Glimcher, the Dean of Cornell Medical School.

By leaving 66 chimps to die of starvation, NYBC Board Member Dr. Laurie Glimcher has failed to fulfill her promise to uphold the Hippocratic Oath.

The survival of Ponso depends on the generosity of the local farmer Germain and the West Africa-based primate charity ATO. Please support their efforts to keep Ponso alive by contributing to “SOS Ponso.”